Books & Essays

Formed by the confluence of the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, the Altamaha is the largest free-flowing river on the East Coast and drains its third-largest watershed. It has been designated as one of the Nature Conservancy’s seventy-five Last Great Places because of its unique character and rich natural diversity. In evocative photography and elegant prose, Altamaha captures the distinctive beauty of this river and offers a portrait of the man who has become its improbable guardian.

Few people know the Altamaha better than James Holland. Raised in Cochran, Georgia, Holland spent years on the river fishing, hunting, and working its coastal reaches as a commercial crabber. Witnessing a steady decline in blue crab stocks, Holland doggedly began to educate himself on the area’s environmental and political issues, reaching a deep conviction that the only way to preserve the way of life he loved was to protect the river and its watershed. In 1999, he began serving as the first Altamaha Riverkeeper, finding new purpose in protecting the river and raising awareness about its plight with people in his community and beyond.

At first Holland used photography to document pollution and abuse, but as he came to appreciate and understand the Altamaha in new ways, his photographs evolved, focusing more on the natural beauty he fought to save. More than 230 color photographs capture the area’s majestic landscapes and stunning natural diversity, including a generous selection of some the 234 species of rare plants and animals in the region. In their essays, Janisse Ray offers a profile of Holland’s transformation from orphan and troubled high school dropout to river advocate, and Dorinda G. Dallmeyer celebrates the biological richness and cultural heritage that the Altamaha offers to all Georgians.

James Holland was the Altamaha Riverkeeper for ten years. He has received numerous awards and honors including being named River Conservationist of the Year by the Georgia River Network and one of the Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend magazine. Dorinda G. Dallmeyer is director of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program at the University of Georgia and author or editor of numerous books, including Elemental South: An Anthology of Southern Nature Writing (Georgia). Janisse Ray is the author or editor of five books including Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River (Georgia) and the bestselling Ecology of a Cracker Childhood.

Book Review #1:"A stunning and
captivating collection of photographs of the wildlife and
habitat of the Altamaha River by riverkeeper and photographer
James Holland is introduced by two solid
essays -- one, a colorful portrait of the
improbable life of the man who made the photos; the second, a
comprehensive, eloquent, and economical survey of the natural
history where they were made."
Sally Bethea, Upper Chattahoochee
Riverkeeper

Book Review #2:"This is a beautiful book
about a beautiful place. Dallmeyer, Ray, and Holland tell the
story of the Altamaha River, southeast Georgia's extraordinary
ecological gem, and in the process have given us something to
admire and inspire. James Holland's photographs are stunning,
and his personal story is as remarkable as his art; he is
already a hero to those of us familiar with his life and work,
and this book will undoubtedly expand his influence even
further. Everyone can learn something from this
book -- from the natural resource professional
to the average Joe concerned about a favorite fishing
hole."
Albert G. Way, author of Conserving
Southern Longleaf

Description: Presenting stunning reproductions of oil paintings by landscape artist Philip Juras, this exhibition catalogue offers a glimpse of the presettlement southern wilderness as late eighteenth-century naturalist William Bartram would have experienced it during his famed travels through the region. Juras?s work combines direct observation with historical, scientific, and natural history research to depict, and in some cases reimagine, landscapes as they appeared in the 1770s. Juras spent years researching Bartram and revisiting important sites the naturalist wrote about in his celebrated Travels. Juras?s paintings recreate the lost southern frontier for contemporary viewers in much the same way that nineteenth century American landscape painters like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran brought the western frontier to the consciousness of the rapidly industrializing East.

Juras?s work explores many of the important and imperiled ecosystems that remain in the South today. These little-known, remnant natural communities, depicted in well-researched and meticulous paintings, are further illuminated by essays placing them in the context of Bartram?s legacy and the American landscape movement. The catalogue features more than sixty reproductions of Juras?s paintings. Presented with essays by the artist as well as Dorinda Dallmeyer, director of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program at the University of Georgia; Holly Koons McCullough, director of collections and exhibitions at the Telfair; and Janisse Ray, lauded poet and environmental advocate, the catalogue provides readers with a rare glimpse of the Southern frontier before its essence was irrevocably altered by European settlement.

Description: Dorinda G. Dallmeyer served as editor for the anthology and contributed the essay "Shadow on the Rivers."

Bartram?s Living Legacy: the Travels and the Nature of the South reprints Bartram?s classic work alongside essays acknowledging the debt southern nature writers owe the man called the ?South?s Thoreau.? the book was a nominee for the Georgia Author of the Year Award.

Book Review #1:"The ecosystems that once
defined the southern landscape have disappeared, as though some
cataclysmic geological event had simply obliterated them. We know of
them chiefly through William Bartram's Travels published in 1791. It
would be about two centuries before a group of southeastern
writers/naturalists/activists began to survey the landscape that we are
left with, and to think about the consequences of what has been lost,
and the power, beauty, and richness of what remains. Dorinda Dallmeyer,
the editor of this wonderfully conceived volume, has been at the center
of that group. Her idea of combining the text of the Travels with
reflections by contemporary southern writers is a brilliant one. Bartram
remains an indispensable writer, whose work has been neglected for too
long. Now at last he, his book, and the land he describes have their
champions. Some of the essayists here focus on Bartram the man, some on
Bartram the naturalist, some on Bartram the writer and artist. And some
focus, as he himself had done, on the landscape and ecology of the
South as it now is, and as it once was.

Some of the essayists in this book I have known and admired for years;
some are entirely new to me. They do not speak with one voice, or on
behalf of any preconceived agenda. But their contributions, taken all
together, indicate that the South now has its own distinctive tradition
of environmental literature. Bartram, not Emerson, Thoreau, Muir, or
John Burroughs, is its progenitor, and this book, I believe, will come
to be seen as its cornerstone."

Description: This essay was composed on for the Georgia River Network and the Ogeechee-Canoochee Riverkeeper and read live at Middle Place on Ossabaw Island, Georgia, for the Coastal Treasures benefit, April 14, 2007.

Description: Dorinda G. Dallmeyer is shown with freshmen students and advisers at Emory University on November 12, 2008. All 300 students residing in the "environmentally-themed" dorms at Emory read Elemental South as part of their introduction to their new home.

Writing with a sense of southern place

Nature writers know that to be fully human is to be engaged with our natural surroundings. Elemental South is a gathering of works by some of the region's best nature writers?people who can coax from words the mysteries of our place in the landscape and the human relationship to wildness.

Arranged by theme according to the basic elements by which many cultures on earth interpret ?earth, air, fire, water?the writings consider our actual and assumed connections in the greater scheme of functioning ecosystems. As we read of bears, ancient magnolias, swallow-tail kites, the serenity of a country childhood, the pleasure of eating real food, the remarkable provenance of ancient pottery shards, and much more, these works lure us deep into the southern landscape, away from the constructs of humanity and closer to a recognition of our inextricable ties to the earth.

The writers are all participants in the Southern Nature Project, an ongoing endeavor founded on the conviction that writing like the kind gathered here can help us to lead more human, profound, and courageous lives in terms of how we use our earth. Some of the featured writers are originally from the South, and others migrated here?but all have honed their voices on the region's distinctive landscapes.

Book Review #1:"Published 150 years after Thoreau's book, it is another Walden. I shall urge each of my grandchildren to read it." Southeastern Geographer, November 2006

Book Review #2:"Elemental South provides a chorus of voices that blend harmoniously despite their different geographies, backgrounds, and styles. By tracing the fault lines and fractures of southern landscapes, society, and spirit, this anthology helps the South begin to heal stronger in the broken places." Will Harlan, editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors

Book Review #3:"If you like to curl up with a good book on cold winter days and you also love the outdoors, read Elemental South. Each leads us to broader truths through careful observations of our natural surroundings." Southern Living

Book Review #4:"This lush collection of works by members of
Southern Nature Project showcases the idiosyncratic impact of our
region?s natural surroundings on its writers, arguably a stronger
influence than the predictable Southern Gothic theme of family secrets."
?Atlanta Magazine

Book Review #1:"Whether the reader is a novice to ethics or to the marine environmental movement, Values at Sea provides an insightful and valuable read. . . . Values at Sea provides extensive food for thought, laying out foundations on which a new marine ethics may be based." Hannah Gillelan, International Journal of Maritime History